Spreadsheet programs are a useful tool in performing computational tasks such as keeping household budgets, work schedules, tracking bank accounts, maintaining inventories, etc. As the use of personal computers within the home increases, the use of spreadsheets to assist in household tasks also increases. The versatility of spreadsheet applications and the ease with which they are adapted to various tasks has resulted in their widespread use. With advances in the speed and capabilities of personal computers, enhanced features have been developed for spreadsheet programs.
In a typical spreadsheet program, cells are arranged in a grid of rows and columns. The cells in a spreadsheet may contain data items, labels, and formulas. In general, data items are entered into the cells, and formulas are used to manipulate or evaluate the data items. In order for a formula to reference a cell within the spreadsheet, the coordinates of the grid are used to identify a specific cell (i.e., Column C, Row 4 or C4). For complex tasks, the formulas within a spreadsheet may become complex and, in some instances, unreadable. Therefore, it is desirable to improve the readability of formulas within a spreadsheet.
One method for improving the readability of spreadsheet formulas is to use defined names or labels to reference cells. This method requires a spreadsheet user to enter certain commands to define a name or label and to associate that name or label with a particular cell or group of cells. Thus, a label such as January.sub.-- Sales could be defined to refer to a cell containing the number of sales that occurred in the month of January. A problem with this prior method is that the procedures required for defining and maintaining the label names can be complicated. Because the typical spreadsheet user may not be trained in software programming or in operating a computer, features such as those described for this method are often under utilized. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a method to improve the readability of spreadsheet formulas in a manner that is easy to learn and exploit.